eBulletin – December 12, 2010

On December 6, 2010, the Court ruled that Dr. Hassan Diab’s defence may call three handwriting experts to testify at the extradition hearing. Crown Attorneys representing France have characterized the handwriting evidence as “the smoking gun” in the case.

Mr. Brian Lindblom, a renowned handwriting expert and a former RCMP document examiner, will appear as the first defence expert to testify regarding the manifest unreliability of the handwriting evidence submitted by French investigators.

In a report filed with the Court, Mr. Lindblom states that the French handwriting analyst’s opinions are “patently unreliable and, for the most part, unsupportable even by her own observations”. Mr. Lindblom concludes, “It is unreasonable to expect that any qualified examiner would reach such findings using the same materials provided to [the analyst].”

“Sadly and unfairly, the Canadian extradition process is not designed to take into account the mountain of exonerating evidence. The legal process is driven by whatever information the French investigators choose to keep within the four corners of a document known as the Record of Case. The French investigators and the Canadian Crown Attorneys representing them remain single-mindedly focused on the task of getting Hassan to France, no matter how clear it is that they are barking up the wrong tree.”